Take a mini-vacay & forget about that Monday class. Join me Sunday, March 8th at the 5th annual Capitol Beer Fest in Downtown Sacramento.

There will be over 100+ brewers with more than 300 varieties of craft beer. There will be food trucks everywhere to satisfy your buzzed munchies. & live music by Daze on the Green.
This event is 21+ only.
Drink responsibly, bring a designated driver or take Uber home! $20 off your first Uber ride the day of the event.

What’s a blog about college life that doesn’t include your weekend festivities? You’re welcome.

Essay writing is an arduous task. Usually, the topic is not something that is fun to write about, like the results of a sociological experiment or something of the like. After the essay is written, or while it is being written if you are a good student, sources must be found and un-ceremoniously plugged into the half assed piece(of shit). But, there is hope for the bored essay writer: drink beer. Beer has the ability to make the unexciting, exciting. That’s why we drink it. Without beer game night is just people snickering about Cards Against Humanity instead of rolling on the ground in laughter; the Super Bowl is just football game; fishing is just staring out at a ditch under I-80. Beer can liven up essay writing as well. It loosens up the thoughts that make it to the page, and embolden the writer to get creative with a bland assignment.

But what beer should be drank when it’s essay time? I prefer something with low alcohol content so I can keep tilting them back throughout the entirety of the process. Registering at only 4.4%, 21st Amendment Brewery’s Bitter American is a great choice.

Bitter American is an Extra Pale Ale that is bitter in all the right ways, and not the scrunch up your face sort of way. It derives its bitterness from hops that brighten up the thick drinking beer. The bitterness offers a contrast to the rich malty background. The thick richness of the beer asks the drinker to take smaller drinks, instead of guzzling it Natty Light style, while the bitterness brings a refreshing note to the otherwise syrupy texture. By the end of the 6 cans that come in 21st Amendment’s eco-friendly box, the essay will be all but written…wait, that’s not good.

Hey, my name is Justus Croy. I’m a community college in Sacramento. My posts on this blog will come on Tuesdays. I will be making posts about being a student/father, and will be voicing my frustrations, breakthroughs, and tips on the subject. I will also include beer reviews every now and then, because beer helps. Beer helps.

The beautiful thing about community college is the diversity of the students. I can go to class as a 31-year-old father of one, and be surrounded by people older than me with more kids, and people fresh out of high school. This post is for my fellow student parents out there. Watching a 3-year-old while trying to do homework or study is a test of self-control, and persistence.

Here’s my quandary: I don’t want to baby sit the child with a TV show, but sometimes I’ll have something that needs to be worked on, and without a distraction he is all over me. He is either relentlessly trying to get me to play like we are Transformers for the billionth time that day, or he is crawling all over me. He does this incredibly obnoxious thing when he wants my attention and I’m trying to put my focus somewhere else—he grabs my chin and pulls my head around to look at him. It literally has me to the point of explosion, then I push those feelings down, take a deep breath, and give him the attention he is seeking. That’s my breaking point. Right when I’m about to blow up at my 3-year-old, I know it’s time to step away from the schoolwork, priorities and all that stuff. But of coarse, I can avoid this scenario by putting on a TV show.

There is no magic process when it comes to dealing with a child while trying to take care of responsibilities. For me, it is an eternal balancing act. I may let him watch a show for an hour while I get through an assignment, and then turn it off and try to get him to play with his toys while I do the dishes. In the end he takes up more of my time than anything else, and that’s how it should be.

There is nothing worse than a three-hour night class. That’s definitely hyperbole, but three hours of lecture in the middle of dinnertime leaves the stomach craving to be filled, and the brain craving to be emptied. Every semester I say that I wont take another three-hour night class, and every semester I end up having to take one to make my class schedule include the necessary courses while working around babysitting for my son. This semester I had to take two of them. The key to trudging through three hours of power point is a burger and a beer.

As the night class approaches, the body isn’t ready to eat yet, but if you don’t eat you’ll regret it come 8:30. So how can one force themselves into eating something that will get them through—eat something so delicious that the lack of hunger doesn’t matter. The burger is more than just fuel, it is a taste orgasm. The rich flavors of a juicy beef patty contrasts the clean, crisp, flavors of the lettuce, tomato, and onion. The condiments, preferably mayo, mix in with the produce like a dressed salad. Most importantly, due to the sandwich nature of the burger, it is easy to hold and can be devoured on the move, or while doing homework.

With the belly full, the student has the fuel to get through the three-hour marathon, but what about the mental fatigue? That’s where the beer races across the beach, hops and yeast bouncing up and down, ready to dive in and rescue the drowning student. Don’t make the rookie mistake and just drink a 12-ounce light beer, this will only tease the brain into restlessness. No, the brain needs 24 ounces of liquid bread to numb it into listening to a professor read their power point for three hours. If the class requires frequent participation, the beer will also allow the student to give explicit opinions, but be careful that it doesn’t loosen you so much that you use explicit language. Know your limits.

Pro-tips: Don’t drink and drive. Don’t drink on campus. Keep it local and try a hole in the wall burger shop. Keep it cheap and buy a 24-ounce Natural Ice (easy drinking, and has 5.9% alcohol content).